Right to Know. Right Now Pooled Editorial on the Freedom of
Information Bill

Philippine
press and broadcast associations such as the Philippine Press
Institute (PPI), Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP),
national and community news organizations, and media personalities
are publishing today,August 15, 2012, a pooled editorial urging
Congress to finally pass the Freedom of Information (FOI)
bill. They are also declaring August 15 FOI Day.

Push, Pass the FOI
Act Now!

In 1986 at EDSA, the first
people power revolt ended 21 years of a government so dark and so
opaque, and ushered in one of light and transparency. The strongman
Ferdinand E. Marcos was vanquished and democracy icon Corazon C.
Aquino came to power.

A year later, the 1987
Constitution enshrined state policies of full transparency and
accountability in the conduct of all public officials and
employees, and of full public disclosure of information vested with
public interest. The Constitution upheld the people’s right to know
and be informed about all policies, projects, and programs of
government that involve use of taxpayers’
money.

It is now 2012, or over 26
years after EDSA. Filipinos today are the most exuberant in their
exercise of the freedoms of speech, of the press, and of peaceable
assembly for redress of just grievances. But one other inelienable
freedom that the Constitution also guarantees — Freedom of
Information — remains just a bill perpetually stuck in the
legislative wringer over the last 14 years, hobbled by the
discombobulating “concerns” of the Executive, and mocked by
restrictive administrative fiats of the judiciary, the House of
Representatives, and even the Office of the
Ombudsman.

The Freedom of Information
Act long promised by the Constitution to this day remains just a
promise. And from the 12th to the present 15th Congress, despite
the dozens of bills filed and refiled, it seems like we are always
back to square one, marching but only in place, on the FOI
Act.

The second Aquino
administration of Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III was installed in
June 2010 on major summons for the citizens and public officials to
trek the “daang matuwid”, rid the nation of corruption, and
alleviate poverty. From birth, it is an administration that seems
naturally betrothed to pushing and passing the FOI Act. Two years
and two months on office hence, the administration and its Liberal
Party-led coalition in the House of Representatives have yet to do
the job.

From various accounts of
senior officials and pro-administration legislators, their less
than vigorous interest in passing the FOI Act supposedly derives
from a few reasons: 1. That some Executive agencies have become
more transparent anyway, they are already uploading online some
budget and public finance documents; 2. That the FOI Act seems
largely an issue of the middle class and the media;
3.

That the FOI Act might not
get the numbers needed in the House, and with the May 2013
elections coming soon, might divide more than unite the political
parties.

Online uploads of public
documents are just half the transparency equation that the FOI Act
must guarantee. The other, more important half of the equation that
an FOI Act guarantees is the public disclosure of documents on
request or on demand of citizens asserting their right to access
information in government custody.

Citizens need and must know
how public officials exercise their powers and authorities, how
they spend public funds, what contracts and agreements they sign
and seal on our behalf, what policy issues bother them that must
also bother us so we may participate in making
decisions.

Citizens need and must know
what programs exist for the delivery of the most basic services, as
well as how they can access with success and within reasonable time
frames the most relevant public documents they need to secure and
safeguard their most basic needs. Indeed, in the panoply of rights,
the right to information is both the most supreme and the most
fundamental as it is the bedrock of all our rights to education,
health, safety, property, livelihood, even
life.

The right to information is
our protection against government abuse, at the same time that it
is our power to make government accountable.

But our right to
information, as great and self-executing as it is under the 1987
Constitution, requires a complementing legislation to ensure its
clear-cut, full and predictable operation. Twenty six years and
five presidents since, the FOI Act remains just a
promise.

Over that long wait, the
proposed measure has undergone numerous adjustments to carefully
balance the people’s right to information on the one hand, and the
interests for reasonable confidentiality and sound administrative
practice, on the other.

This balancing process has
already been exhausted. In truth what is now left preventing the
passage of the FOI law are the personal and speculative fears of
our leaders of the people’s exercise of their right to
know.

Today, we speak with one
voice and join the rest of our people in demanding political will
on the part of President Aquino, Senate President Juan Ponce
Enrile, and House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. to lead their
respective institutions in immediately enacting the FOI
Act.

With time fast running out
on the 15th Congress, the long wait for the FOI Act should have
been over yesterday. The time for decision is
now.